My Brother's Enemy? Or My Brother's Best Friend?
by Celeste123456
Summary: Rose was Benny's younger sister, and she'd been following him around like a lost puppy since forever, but that has to change. How will the sandlot boys react when she suddenly avoids them like the plague? What happens when she falls for her brother's enemy. And how will Benny react when he finds out one of the sandlot boys has a crush on his little sister?


"Rose! I'm heading to the sandlot soon, so be ready in five minutes!"

Rosalyn Amelia Rodriguez sighed as she heard her older brother, Benny yell from downstairs. Of course he didn't ask if she wanted to go with him; he just assumed. The same way she had just been assuming he and his friends wanted her to tag along with them for years.

Benny was her older brother by a year, and when they were younger they had been together constantly. But as they grew older, Benny made his own friends and didn't spend as much time with her anymore. Of course, being the determined girl she was, she hung on to him as tight as she could for as long as she could. But that stopped now.

She honestly didn't even know she was being so annoying until a few days ago when she couldn't find her shoes and told Benny to go on ahead of her. She found them a few minutes later and ran to catch up to him, when she heard what he and Ham were talking about. Her.

"So where's your little stalker today?" Ham asked as they walked toward the sandlot.

"You mean Rose?" Hearing her name, she stopped in her tracks. "She couldn't find her shoes and told me to go on ahead."

"So you've finally got some breathing room, huh? I swear, she follows you more than your shadow!"

Rose stood, shocked. She expected Benny to stand up for her, just like he always did as her older brother. But that didn't happen.

"I know. It's so annoying!" They both laughed before talking about something else.

After that, Rose went home and started thinking about what they said. After a while, she realized that she really couldn't blame them. She had been following the sandlot gang around like a lost puppy, but today that stopped.

Benny hadn't been aloud to go to the sandlot the last few days because of rain, so he didn't know about her resolution to spend as little time there as possible.

"Well, are you coming?" Benny asked, sticking his head in my room.

"Actually, i'm going to hang out with some of my friends today."

The look of shock on Benny's face would have been funny if it wasn't so offensive. Sure, he was probably used to her practically stalking him everywhere he went, but he knew she had other friends. She hung out with them all the time. Usually when the sandlot gang weren't playing baseball, but that was besides the point!

"Oh. All right..." he trailed off awkwardly before leaving.

I waited until I heard the front door close before raising downstairs to use the phone.

"Hello?" I heard once my friend, Catherine picked up.

"Catherine, it's Rose."

"Oh, hey Rose! What's up?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to go down to the pool later?" she said hopefully.

Summer vacation was only a month away, and she planned to stay away from the sandlot as much as possible, which meant she needed friends she could hang out with. Catherine had always been a 'school friend' who she sat with at lunch and in classes, but they rarely saw each other outside of school. Only when she couldn't be with Benny. There were a lot of people she only hung out with when she wasn't with Benny.

"Sure. Is Benny sick or something?"

So even Catherine, who Rose barely ever saw, noticed. Fantastic.

"No. I just wanted to hang out with some of my other friends for a change."

"Really?" The shock in her voice was clear as day, even over the phone. "I mean, that's great! Who else is coming?"

Thinking quickly, she listed the few friends who's phone numbers she actually had.

"Alice, Mary, Rebecca, and Jane. If they say yes. I haven't called them yet."

"Mary's sick, actually, and Rebecca's doing something with her cousin, I think. But Alice and Jane will probably come."

"Alright, i'll see you later! Bye."

She said goodbye and we hung up. The other two both agreed to coming, after getting over the shock that I actually wanted to hang out with them instead of Benny. It was really sad how everyone seemed to notice how dependent she was on Benny.

That had to change.

-()-

Not far away, the sandlot boys were in the middle of a game of baseball, although everyone's thoughts were on the same thing. Rose.

Although they had all thought she was just Benny's annoying kid sister at first, they had all come to like her. Of course that didn't stop the jokes they all made about how she 'stalked' Benny. They had all grown so used to seeing her almost everyday, now that she wasn't there they felt like they were missing something.

She was sweet, funny, knew all about baseball, and was actually pretty good at it. For a girl, of course. And, although they would never say it for fear of Benny pounding their faces in with a bat, they all noticed she was pretty. Maybe even beautiful.

And of course, everyone knew about Yeah-Yeah's crush on her. Everyone except Benny, who would probably murder him with his bare hands if he found out how he felt about his 'baby sister.' It was this crush that kept Yeah-Yeah glancing at the gate of the sandlot, hoping she would show up. Sure, anytime she was watching them play he felt like there was a giant knot in his stomach and he couldn't form a coherent thought besides 'god you're perfect,' but when she was there, he seemed to play his best. Probably because he never wanted to embarass himself in front of her.

"Yeah-Yeah!" Benny shouted. "What's going on with you? Get your head in the game!"

"Yeah-yeah, sorry!"

They all continued playing, not realizing they were all thinking about the same thing.

-()-

Rose laughed loudly with her friends as they swam around the pool with them.

Alice, Jane and Catherine were a lot more fun than Rose had realized. It had been a while since she could talk to anyone about anything besides baseball, and she was glad she had taken time away from the sandlot.

"I think i'm going to get a drink of water," she told her friends once the laughter had died down a bit.

She swam to the edge of the pool and climbed up the ladder to were there stuff was. As she walked, she slipped on the wet cement ofthe public pool, and would have cracked her head open if she hadn't been caught by someone. A very handsome someone to be specific.

"Are you alright?"

She looked at the boy in front of her as one thought went through her mind. Damn.

He was slightly pale, with bright blue eyes and short blonde hair. He had a light sprinkling of freckles across his nose, and he was built like an athlete.

"I'm fine," I told him, standing on my own when I realized I had been staring at him for a while. "Thanks for catching me. I'm Rose, by the way."

Clasping my outstretched hand, he said, "Adam Philips. Most people just call me Philips, though."

Philips. I wonder why that sounded so familiar.


End file.
